IB French: How to Prepare for Paper 1, Paper 2 and the Oral

1. Know which course you are sitting

French B assesses your ability to communicate in French across defined themes — identities, experiences, human ingenuity, social organisation, sharing the planet. Marks go to clear messages in appropriate text types, not to literary sophistication.

French A treats French as your language of instruction: you analyse literary works and, in language and literature, non-literary texts as well. The commentary skills it demands are close to those of the French Baccalauréat, and the method I describe in my guide to the commentaire composé applies directly.

2. Paper 1: writing in the right text type

In French B, Paper 1 gives you a choice of tasks and asks for one piece of writing in a specified text type: a blog post, a formal letter, a speech, an article, a set of instructions, a diary entry. Conventions carry marks. A speech that never addresses an audience, or a formal letter without its opening and closing formulas, loses points before the language is even assessed.

Build a personal file of the main text types, each on one page: layout, opening, register, typical connectors, closing. Rehearse them until the frame is automatic, so that in the exam your attention goes to content.

• Identify audience, purpose and register in the first minute of reading the task.
• Plan three developed ideas rather than five undeveloped ones.
• Vary tenses deliberately: a well-placed subjunctive or conditional shows range.
• Leave time to check agreements, accents and the closing formula.

3. Paper 2: listening and reading

Paper 2 combines a listening section and a reading section, both based on authentic material. The difficulty is rarely vocabulary alone; it is following an argument delivered at natural speed, in accents you may not have heard.

Train with unedited French media rather than textbook recordings — news bulletins, interviews, documentary extracts — and vary the accents on purpose: France, Quebec, Belgium, West and North Africa.

• Read the questions before listening; they tell you what to hold in memory.
• Note figures, dates and names as you hear them; they are rarely repeated.
• In reading, locate the sentence that answers each question and quote precisely when asked.

4. The individual oral

In French B, the individual oral starts from a visual stimulus linked to a course theme: you describe it, interpret it, connect it to the theme and to a French-speaking culture, then discuss it with your teacher. In French A, you present a comparative analysis of two extracts around a global issue.

Both versions reward structure. A clear opening line, two or three organised points, a connection to the wider theme and a short conclusion turn a nervous description into an argued presentation. Cultural knowledge matters: a precise reference to a French-speaking context is worth more than a general observation.

• Rehearse with a timer, out loud, recorded — not silently in your head.
• Prepare a short repertoire of flexible connectors for the discussion phase.
• Be ready to defend an interpretation; the examiner will push, and that is an opportunity.

5. Reading and writing habits across the two years

IB French is a two-year course and behaves like one. The students who are comfortable in the final session are those who built modest, continuous habits rather than intensive revision at the end.

Fifteen minutes of French reading a day, one written piece a fortnight with feedback, and one recorded oral a month are enough. Keep a vocabulary notebook organised by theme rather than alphabetically, so it maps onto the exam.